City Council members will have an interesting question before them at this month’s voting session regarding the Gateway Lofts project.

Thus far, the supportive housing project – whose price tag has grown to $77 million – has been kept somewhat at arm’s length from City Council members with most of the discussion taking place at the Planning Commission level. The project is beginning to pick up steam for seemingly the first time in years, and it’s time for the council to weigh in.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, is proposing to reallocate $640,000 in previously received federal HOME program funding to the Gateway Lofts project. Paying for the Gateway Lofts project has always been the biggest question about the project. The city’s $640,000 contribution would largely be used in site preparation, according to documents provided to the council recently.

For years the city has sprinkled its yearly CDBG and HOME program money into several different programs each year. Oftentimes programs the city has defined as needs struggle to attract users, like the years-long effort to get landlords to participate in lead paint reduction programs that are largely funded through the CDBG program. It means federal money meant to help is often left sitting in a bank account until someone comes to use the program.

The proposed reallocation is a departure from that approach. Rather than spending a little here and there, the city would be pulling unspent money from several different programs to spend them in one place where, at the end of the project, there would be something big to show for the spending.

STEL officials have come a long way with the Gateway Lofts project. Remember, there was months of haggling over how STEL would meet the city’s requirement that any new housing had to result in demolition of existing substandard housing, which means STEL is paying $355,000 as part of the Gateway Lofts project to pay for other city homes to be leveled. And, we have seen a need for the type of housing the Gateway Lofts will create. The project could certainly be a help for those who currently find themselves temporarily homeless and living in county-funded hotels.

Two concerns raised during a recent work session by Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, should be addressed, but in our view shouldn’t be enough to keep the city from investing in the Gateway Lofts project. Gateway Lofts should be filled with Jamestown or Chautauqua County residents rather than residents from elsewhere that merely shifts one region’s issues to Jamestown. We couldn’t agree more, but we also have no doubt that the 110 units the Gateway Lofts will create can be filled with local residents instead of people coming from outside the city. Russell is also concerned about call volumes for police, fire and EMS when the Gateway Lofts comes online. Whether call volumes actually increase or merely shift from other areas of the city to Water Street is something we simply won’t know until after the fact.

In our opinion it’s time for the city to take a big swing at this particular housing-related problem and provide the funding to the Gateway Lofts project.